​If you suffer from recurring injuries, you are not alone. While they’re common to athletes, especially those who compete at high levels, non-athletes are prone to recurring injuries as well. If you’re one of them, you may be wondering why.

When an injury seems to have been treated and goes away only to return again, it’s often due to a repetitive and sometimes incorrect movement pattern, or compensation pattern. For example, if you have to bend many times throughout your day and are bending incorrectly, it can cause pain that will likely keep returning.

Compensation patterns are quite common. Your body will start recruiting other muscles to help the tired, weak ones perform the same task. This is how injury begins; the smaller muscles and joint are put into stressful situations and give out first. So, although this is the area where the pain may be located, this is not the problem. The problem areas which should be treated are the muscles and joints that should have been doing the work and gave out first. These muscles and joints are usually tight, in spasm, and restricted.

Another common reason is spinal restrictions. These are spinal and nervous system injuries that can go long periods of time without symptoms, and then suddenly cause pain and discomfort anywhere in the body.

No matter the reason for your recurring injuries, one of the main problems is the way in which they are dealt. If only the symptoms of an injury are being treated instead of the cause of the problem, it is very likely to keep coming back. While medications can help ease pain and discomfort, by merely removing the symptoms they can incorrectly allow you to think the injury has been healed when it has not. You may temporarily feel better though unhealed, and that can lead to recurring injury. Remember - pain is always the last symptom to appear, and the first to leave. This does not mean that the problem is resolved; there are still underlying mechanical injuries that need to be treated.

Injury prevention and proper treatment are your best course of action to avoid these issues, with chiropractic care as an essential part of training and recovery. Because we use specific functional test and manual adjustments to the spine, we can ensure that the body is properly aligned to avoid compensation patterns. This allows us to help restore full range of joint motion, and improve flexibility and muscle control. Chiropractic care also helps to reduce pain and inflammation to assist in healing injuries, which then allows the body to become less injury prone.

At Bodylab, we can work to find out exactly why your injuries recur, and then create a personalized treatment plan. Contact us today to start working toward your healthiest body.